Saturday, March 15

Nobody leaves empty handed, so we're gonna cut off his hands

It struck me tonight, at the start of the second period, or maybe the middle of the period, at some point while the score was still 3 to 1, that it looked like there were 5 Kyle Wellwood’s on the ice. Full, no doubt, from his fist dipped in batter (my choice in the poll).
And worse: how predictably they played. It doesn’t take Roger Neilson to watch the Leafs try the exact same play on the rush, every single time…especially if Blake’s got the puck. (I know that Jason Blake deserves a mulligan this year, and he gets it, for sure - but at some point in your 1000th goddamn shot Jason...pass the puck.
(Shrugs)

And yes losing Mats Sundin to the evil groin injury (groin injury, gr-gr-groin in-jur-ee) and then Antropov in the first three minutes of this game is the worst thing to happen to humanity since the release of Ya Mo Be There...but some one else, anyone else...take the reins. And not just one period, one game stepping it up.
Remember a few years ago when Mats went down in the playoffs, forgive me but I think it was in a series against the Isles, and Alyn McCauley endeared himself to us forever with his heroics in that tough series? I hate to say it but with this shortened bench, I don't see an Alyn McCauley anywhere.

Tell me that sounds like band wagon jumping and I will say what fucking business is that of yours you asshole, I'll kick your fucking head in.

I continued watching the game and what struck me about our team around the 5 to 2 mark was how much like something from my past this team is.
Imagine it’s the summer and it’s 1989. Without aging myself I’m 17 years old and hanging out with a guy named John Paczek. First thing you gotta know is that we called him pollock not John not pac-zek, and not Pollock like the painter but po-lock as in racial slur. We also called him paycheck. Regardless what we called him, he was a superb guy to be friends with, particularly at 17. Paycheck liked chicks and to drink and to skateboard. And when you’re 17, and it’s the summer, that’s like the Holy Trinity.
So that summer Paycheck, who I think may still have been 16, and I find ourselves, impossibly, in rural Quebec. A city close-ish to Montreal called St-Jean-Sur-Richelieu. Now the question why were there or what brought us there remains, I’m afraid, lost for the ages. And suffice it to say statutes of limitations being what they are it may or may not have been illegal and salacious. My point in the tale is Paycheck and I, drinking underage in a Francophone peeler bar.
The club in question, Le Pink Panther, was, if memory serves, where the strippers clearly went to die. Not to say that the strippers were old but one of them danced to Mozart.
Regardless, he and I were there for the dollar shots, dollar beers and the dollar pool table. Now let me tell you, I am always wary of guys who speak other languages. When you don’t know the language it’s amazing how much “Hey after this game of pool I need to go pick up my kids from my sister's house” sounds like “The second this English pig’s back is turned I'm going to smash him across the back of the head with a pool cue and steal his shoes.” How should I know? It’s all Greek to me.
And I am clearly Anglo and worse a frigger d'ontario from Toronto no less...oh God and fucking paycheck is Polish so he's like fucking vanilla ice cream ala mode white and the extent of my French besides Voulez Vous Couche Avec Moi C'est Soir? is an imitation of Clousseau asking if your dog bites.

What the hell was I talking about? Oh yeah...Leafs lost. I'm totally gutted.